Illuminismo Iniziato is a parser-based puzzle game in Spring Thing 2018, and a sequel to Risorgimento Represso (2003). The protagonist has come from our world, but been drawn into a universe of wizardry. You’ve got an overarching quest to solve, but getting through it requires breaking into various locations and getting access to various objects, as … Continue reading “Illuminismo Iniziato (Michael J. Coyne, Spring Thing 2018)”
I’ve been playing more of the games from this year’s Spring Thing. (You too can play! And vote! And review, if you wish!) Ms. Lojka is a horror Twine about a beastly supernatural killer in New York City, with some references to Babel and Rasputin, backed by some (I thought) rather effective illustrations, as well as … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2016: Ms. Lojka, Tangaroa Deep, Sisters of Claro Largo”
A Roiling Original is a wordplay game by Andrew Schultz, a sequel to 2012’s Shuffling Around (my review). It uses a similar mechanic of changing one object into another via anagrams, and is an entrant in Spring Thing 2013. More detailed thoughts after the break. If you’re planning to play and vote on Spring Thing … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2013: A Roiling Original”
Events March 21 is the next meeting of the Baltimore/DC Area IF Meetup, to discuss Barkdull and Borgard’s Black Sheep. March 22 will be the next meeting for the Seattle/Tacoma IF Group. April 4 is the next meeting of the SF Bay Interactive Fiction Meetup. NarraScope organizers set dates of May 29-31 for the annual … Continue reading “Mid-March Link Assortment”
In which I list some nominees for Victor Gijsbers’ Top 50 IF list. And, because I’m me, I explain why those and not others. A lot.
This blog post has a more than usually technical title, for which I apologize. It’s inspired by some recent conversations in which I hear people saying “branching narrative” to mean “narrative that is not linear and in which the player has some control over story outcome,” apparently without realizing that there are many other ways of … Continue reading “Beyond Branching: Quality-Based, Salience-Based, and Waypoint Narrative Structures”
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 